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It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another edition of Penguins Pit.

This week, hosts Jonathan Bombulie and Michael Cignoli get you up to speed on the latest news surrounding the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and get you prepared for the coming weekend slate against Norfolk and Rochester.

Their guest this week is Penguins center Zack Torquato, who discusses the recent injury to center Zach Sill and Torquato’s own run-in with an opponents’ skate blade, which caused a gruesome injury.

Also on the docket this week a lot of discussion about rookie goalie Eric Hartzell, who is making a strong case to be named the American Hockey League’s goaltender of the month. Plus, what sets Hartzell apart from other free agent goalies the Penguins have signed in recent seasons, notably Brad Thiessen and John Curry. Also, that highlight-reel goal Harry Zolnierczyk scored on Wednesday night and more obligatory discussion about the Olympic hockey teams.

There’s a lot more inside, too, so click the player or link below to listen.

The last time the Syracuse Crunch visited the Mohegan Sun Arena, they handed the WBS Penguins a 4-2 loss. That was eight games ago, and frankly, I had pretty much forgotten about it.

The Penguins hadn’t.

Both Eric Hartzell and Harry Zolnierczyk mentioned the Penguins being exceptionally focused for this one, an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday night game in late January, because of the last meeting between the teams. I doubt that’s the No. 1 reason why the Penguins cruised to a 4-0 win tonight, but it was probably one of the reasons.

Hartzell’s play was another. He made 20 saves to record his third shutout of the year. Only three AHL goalies — Syracuse’s Kristers Gudlevskis, Albany’s Keith Kincaid and Adirondack’s Cal Heeter with four — have more. Good year for goaltending in upstate New York.

Hartzell is 5-1 with a 1.24 GAA and .949 save percentage in January. He has allowed two goals or fewer in eight straight starts. In the second period tonight, when Syracuse pushed back after falling behind 2-0 in the first, outshooting the Penguins 8-4, Hartzell was at his best.

It makes you wonder if there’s still time for Hartzell to get a Latvian passport, given how decisively he outplayed Syracuse’s Gudlevskis, who will start for that country in Sochi.

Anyway, the Penguins took a 1-0 lead in the first three minutes on a greasy goal by Paul Thompson. They made it 2-0 when Tom Kostopoulos tipped in a Philip Samuelsson point shot.

Early in the third, Zolnierczyk scored a highlight-reel job to essentially put the Crunch away. Denver Manderson finished off a cross-ice pass from Kostopoulos for his first AHL goal a little later.

I will try to describe the filthy Zolnierczyk goal. He weaved over to the right wing trying to kill some time as his teammates made a line change, then decided he could chip the puck between Joey Mormina and Artem Sergeev and split the defenders. He succeeded, then picked a corner as he was basically being tackled. It was basically one-on-four or one-on-five. Here, see for yourself.

Might be an update tomorrow afternoon. Depends on what kind of practice and media availability the team has in the middle of a stretch of three games in four days. If not, check back Friday.

Mostly good news for Zach Sill today after his arm was cut by Nolan Yonkman’s skate blade Saturday night in Norfolk.

He had surgery this morning — to repair tendon damage, I gather — but the effects aren’t expected to be long-lasting and he should be able to return to the ice well before the end of the season.

He’s having a breakthrough year, playing the first 20 NHL games of his career and seeing more ice time than ever when he’s with WBS. I’m sure the news that his season isn’t over was a relief.

Sill’s situation got me thinking about skate-blade injuries and I talked to coach John Hynes and center Zack Torquato about that topic after practice.

Torquato, obviously, knows a lot about it since he lost the tip of his middle finger to a skate blade a few years back. More on him in the paper and online tomorrow.

I wondered if there’s anything that can be done to help prevent this type of injury. I talked to equipment manager Paul DeFazio about it for a few minutes. He said traditional hockey equipment (gloves, elbow pads, pants, etc.) generally does a good job protecting most areas of the body from skate cuts. What we’re really talking about are a few vulnerable areas like the back of the lower leg, the wrist, the inner thigh or the face.

Technology is improving. Some players use Kevlar-infused socks or wrist guards. As they become more comfortable and more affordable, I suspect more players will begin using them.

I also wondered if there are more skate-blade injuries these days than there used to be. Between Sill, Torquato and a cut to Paul Bissonnette’s wrist in the 2009 playoffs, that’s three pretty major injuries in five years in the Penguins minor leagues. It seems like a lot.

I don’t think there have been major advances in skate-sharpening technology, so that’s probably not it. I theorized that maybe because players generally take shorter shifts and skate harder than they used to in, say, the 70s or 80s, there are more collisions that lead to players going head over heels and potentially cutting opponents (or teammates) with a skate.

It also might just be that we live in an era where news travels better than it ever did before. Twenty years ago, if an AHL player in another part of the country suffered a skate-blade cut, we might never know about it. Last year, when San Antonio’s Andre Deveaux took a skate to the face and needed 50 stitches, anyone in the world could have read about it online.

Whether they’re more frequent these days or not, one thing about skate-blade injuries is for sure. Players don’t spend much time thinking about them. I mean, if they really sat down and focused on that fact that every time they step on the ice, they’re trapped in an enclosed space with 24 razor-sharp blades flying around, they might have a hard time playing the game.

Thanks for your comments on the three-in-three travel situation on the last post. Some interesting thoughts. I think Jason’s comment puts things in an interesting perspective. It’s not a competitive balance issue or even a player fatigue issue. It’s an entertainment issue. Sunday games at the back end of a three-in-three are pretty frequently boring. Eliminating them might make the game seem more exciting in general.

Judging by this season’s schedule, I don’t think the Penguins front office would disagree with that idea. The Penguins play 12 Sunday games this season, but just three of them are at home.

Finally, a couple of Nailers notes:

– Cody Sylvester is the ECHL player of the week. He had five goals in four games last week, including three game winners. I really liked Sylvester’s game in the preseason. I thought he was feisty with a nose for the net. He didn’t look quite so good in 17 regular-season AHL games though, certainly not as effective as, say, Torquato has been. I suspect he’ll get another shot to rectify that before it’s all said and done.

– Chaz Johnson got an eight-game suspension for his role in a brawl with Cincinnati last weekend. He got five games for fighting after a legal line change and three more for a match penalty for a punch he threw. A pretty severe sentence.

A 300-mile overnight road trip that got the WBS Penguins into Hershey at about 5 a.m. and a power play that is sputtering worse than any bus ever has combined to hand a 2-0 win to the Hershey Bears on Sunday.

For all the travel/fatigue-related reasons I detailed last night (scroll down a post), this was basically an unwinnable game for the Penguins.

If they were to the pull the upset, they needed to take an early lead and sit on it. Hershey gave them a chance to do that, taking two early penalties, but the Penguins didn’t convert on a 69-second two-man advantage.

The Penguins’ power play has been pretty bad for the duration of the six-game road trip they just completed. They went 1 for 24, with the one coming in a 4-2 win at Portland two Saturdays ago. They were 0 for 7 tonight. Coach John Hynes said they had chances tonight, so he wasn’t too worried about it, but it’s definitely been an issue lately.

After the Penguins didn’t score on the 5-on-3, Anton Zlobin got called for back-to-back minors about four minutes apart. Hershey cashed in on the second one when Ryan Stoa made a backhand saucer pass from the right-wing corner to Dustin Gazley at the bottom of the left circle for a one-timer. Nice play.

Hershey made it 2-0 early in the second when Jeff Taffe cleaned up the rebound of a Gazley shot from the right wing.

The Penguins had some chances to get back in the game late in the second and into the third. A Simon Despres point shot on the power play sat loose in the crease for a second or two. A deflected Nick Drazenovic shot hit the crossbar in the third. Philipp Grubauer didn’t blink and time ticked away.

A question for the commenters: Do you think the AHL should do something to try to eliminate travel situations like this?

They’ve gotten rid of four-in-fives. They could probably get rid of three-in-threes that include more than x number of miles in bus travel too. Or do you chalk it up to life in the AHL, where attendance factors mean weekend games and weekend games sometimes mean crappy travel situations? I’m not sure where I stand. I’d like to hear your thoughts.

On a personnel note, Hynes said Zach Sill is expected to be out long term after taking a skate to the arm late in Saturday night’s game at Norfolk. He traveled with the team to Hershey, then was driven to Pittsburgh, where he is expected to be evaluated Monday.

Also, Hershey was without head coach Mike Haviland due to what the team called a minor medical issue that cropped up last night. Assistant coach Ryan Mougenel took over coaching duties and scratched D Patrick Wellar helped out on the bench.

Some bullet points from a 2-1 WBS Penguins shootout win in Norfolk tonight:

– Great goalie duel. The Penguins’ goalie of the past, Brad Thiessen, making his first start against his old team against Eric Hartzell, the Penguins’ goalie of the future. Thiessen was great early, making 10 stops in each of the first two periods. Hartzell was great late, making 14 stops in the third period and four in overtime. Both were awesome in the shootout.

– Speaking of the shootout, both goalies were flawless in the first seven rounds. In the eighth, Tom Kuhnhackl scored on a wrister and Hartzell stopped Alex Grant and that was your ballgame.

– Zach Sill left the ice with less than 30 seconds left in the third period after taking the skate of Norfolk defenseman Nolan Yonkman to his left arm. He left the ice urgently and hurried to the locker room. I’ll try to get an update tomorrow in Hershey.

– After a 4-1 loss the night before, coach John Hynes scratched Zack Torquato and Anton Zlobin, shook up all his lines, including breaking up Tom, Nick & Harry, and trying almost all 12 of his forwards on the power play at one time or another. Results were mixed. The Penguins looked great early, outshooting Norfolk 21-10 at the game’s halfway point and scoring when a Brendan Mikkelson point shot pinballed in, apparently off Mike Carman, late in the first period.

– The Penguins didn’t finish any other chances, though, and the power play was ineffective again, going 0 for 3. Norfolk took the game over late in the second period and tied the score with less than 10 seconds left in regulation. Devante Smith-Pelly tipped a Sami Vatanan shot from the right point. Hartzell made a nice pad save, but Smith-Pelly cashed in the rebound. The line of Smith-Pelly, Max Friberg and Emerson Etem was dangerous all night. It seemed like they were out there every other shift.

– The Penguins visit Hershey tomorrow in what I have deemed on the podcast an unwinnable game. Norfolk on Friday, Norfolk on Saturday, six-hour bus trip and Hershey at 5 p.m. Sunday? The Penguins have done that three times before in team history and they’ve lost the Sunday game all three times. Add in the fact that Hershey has won six of its last seven overall and seven in a row at home and I’m betting the mortgage on the Bears. We’ll see how that goes.

There were some exciting storylines in tonight’s 4-1 Norfolk win over WBS. You had Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers tossed from the game for getting into a goalie fight in the second period. You had rookie John Gibson continuing his mastery of the AHL affiliate of his hometown team. You had the Penguins losing their first game of a week again.

To be honest, I would argue the No. 1 reason the Penguins lost was that their power play was dismal, going 0 for 5 while Norfolk went 2 for 3, but that’s somewhat boring to write about, so we’ll stick with the other stuff.

Norfolk took a 2-0 lead in the last six minutes of the first period. Devante Smith-Pelly tipped in an Alex Grant shot from the top of the left faceoff circle and John Kurtz steered in a Garnet Exelby shot from the left point with his skate. A video review showed no distinct kicking motion, apparently.

About six minutes into the second, Deslauriers was on top of a puck at the top of the crease when Zack Stortini plowed in and took an extra whack. Deslauriers was irate, throwing punches at Stortini with his glove, but the melee soon broke up.

Then it was time for a promotional timeout, so both teams went back to the benches. At that point, Deslauriers and Gibson had words. At the end of the timeout, they came together and fought, more or less. Gibson quickly tackled Deslauriers. Gibson got a double minor for roughing. Deslauriers got a double minor for roughing, a fighting major and a game misconduct. Eric Hartzell came on in relief.

The Penguins seemed to play a little better after the rhubarb and made the score 2-1 before the period ended. Brian Dumoulin took a shot from the center point and Zach Sill tipped it in. Sill has scored in back-to-back AHL games, separated by two months in the NHL. He looked great tonight.

The Penguins had three power plays in the first half of the third period but didn’t get much going on any of them. Norfolk cashed in on its first, with Emerson Etem hitting Smith-Pelly at the left post, to basically put the Penguins away at 3-1.

Getting back to the original three exciting storylines, credit to Deslauriers, I guess, for trying to spark his team and maybe get Gibson off his game. He gave it his best shot.

Meanwhile, the stat on the first game of the week is this: Since Nov. 24, the Penguins are 1-8 in the first game of any calendar week. An odd trend continues.

And Gibson is now 3-0 against the Penguins this season, having stopped 72-of-75 shots. I would guess the Penguins would prefer to get a crack at Brad Thiessen tomorrow night.

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another edition of Penguins Pit.

This week, hosts Jonathan Bombulie and Michael Cignoli get you up to speed on the latest news surrounding the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and get you prepared for the coming week of games against Norfolk (twice), Hershey and Syracuse.

Their guest this week is Penguins winger Dominik Uher, who discusses everything from playing on the Utz line with Zack Torquato and Anton Zlobin and his comeback from a recent injury to his father’s experiences as a mountain climber, including scaling K2.

Also on the docket this week: How far Philip Samuelsson has come from his rookie season to this week, when he was selected as the AHL Player of the Week, how recently demoted defenseman Simon Despres figures into Pittsburgh’s long-term plans and why the Penguins passed on claiming forward Dustin Jeffrey when the Dallas Stars waived the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton alum a few days ago.

There’s a lot more inside, too, so click the player or link below to listen.

– Eric Hartzell, who had a really good weekend, didn’t practice today due to illness. Video coach Samson Lee, who sources say turned in an MVP caliber performance for the D League championship team at Coal Street last season, filled in. Hartzell is expected to be fine for this weekend. If not, the Penguins actually have a call-up option in Wheeling now that Peter Mannino has reported.

– Adam Payerl skated for a little while in full gear at the end of practice today. He’s not close to returning from his upper body injury — coach John Hynes said he’s week to week — but that’s a significant upgrade considering there was a possibility he would be out for the rest of the season.

– No significant changes as far as line combinations and D pairs go. The Tom, Nick & Harry Line and Grandma UTZ line are still intact. (@Brenda: Grandma Utz)

– According to reports, Dallas put Dustin Jeffrey on waivers today. If no other NHL team takes him, Pittsburgh could re-claim him and send him to WBS. Will that happen? I really have no idea. I haven’t heard anyone talk about Jeffrey since he was originally claimed by the Stars. If I hear anything, you’ll be the first to know.

– According to reports out of Pittsburgh, Andrew Ebbett is back practicing and Brian Gibbons, Beau Bennett and Tomas Vokoun are skating on their own. Pittsburgh has 22 healthy players on the roster — 12 forwards, eight defensemen and two goalies — so when two of those aforementioned forwards get healthy, a roster addition for WBS would be a good possibility.

– @CanyonVR: Here’s the thing on Despres. I wouldn’t trade him unless it’s part of a big move. Two reasons why. First of all, he’s getting better. He’s been awesome in the AHL this season. He’s a much better player now than he was a year ago at this time, and that’s really all you can ask from a prospect. Second, Brooks Orpik, Matt Niskanen and Deryk Engelland are unrestricted free agents after this season and of all the Penguins defensive prospects, to me, Despres is the one closest to being ready for full-time NHL duty.

Frankly, I don’t understand the negative vibe that seems to be surrounding Despres right now. Was he that bad in his 18 games in Pittsburgh this year? I thought he was OK. He’s a 6-foot-4, 225-pound 22-year-old defenseman who’s getting better. You don’t throw a prospect like that in the discard pile unless you’ve got a really, really good reason.

More on Despres online and in the paper on Sunday. I talked to him and Hynes about his place in the organization these days.

The Penguins have an early bus for Norfolk tomorrow, so the next blog update will come Friday night. Until then …

The Penguins had an optional practice today, so no on-ice observations from me today, but a couple of topics of conversation anyway.

One is Philip Samuelsson, who was named AHL player of the week yesterday.

I talked to Samuelsson about pretty much every angle of his one-goal, four-assist, plus-6 weekend — whether he expected it, the impact of the return of Simon Despres on his game, whether his confidence is at an all-time high after an NHL stint — so check that out tomorrow online or in the paper.

Samuelsson’s selection marked the 18th time in Penguins history a player was so honored by the AHL. When you read that sentence, did you smell a Sporcle coming? It’s at the bottom of this post. If you don’t want to play trivia games and you just want to see the list, I think you can just click on the “give up” button on the quiz and it’s right there for you.

Two is this odd little stat, with an assist to broadcaster Mike O’Brien, who noticed it before I did. There have been 16 weeks in the AHL regular season so far. Here is the Penguins’ record broken down by game of the week:

Add it up and that’s 7-7-2 in the first game of the week (.500) and 17-5-2 thereafter (.750). What to make of that, aside from nice, round points percentages? It seems like a large enough sample size where it isn’t a coincidence.

I wonder if it has something to do with the intensity with which the Penguins practice. Let’s say the Penguins practice hard all week, so they have less jump than their fresher opponents in the first game of the week, but because they’re better conditioned, they wear down less quickly and less noticeably than their opponents.

Or how about this: Coach John Hynes is really good at making adjustments between the first and second game of a given week.

I don’t know. Those might be crackpot theories, but they’re the best I’ve got.

Bobby Farnham had some thoughts. He said the Penguins play better when they’re a little bit on edge, like they would be if they lost the first game of the week and heard about it from the coaching staff. Here’s a stat that backs up his theory: When the Penguins lose the first game of the week in regulation, they’re 6-0-1 in the second game of that week.

This type of analysis would be useless in the NHL, where teams basically play every couple of days. I think it’s significant in the AHL, however, because so many games are played on weekends. Teams gear up for a stretch of games, then have a few days to recover and work on some things in practice, then gear up for the next stretch. If teams can identify the weak spots in that cycle, they can more easily work to correct them.

If you have any theories, post them in the comment section.

Speaking of comments, if the Uher-Torquato-Zlobin line sticks together, it will definitely be known as the Utz Line. Maybe even the Grandma Utz Line. The game gets chippy when the Grandma Utz Line is on the ice.

The first time the WBS Penguins played in Providence, they got dominated. When they returned a short time later, they were the ones doing the dominating.

Although the stakes aren’t nearly as high and it’s a two-game situation rather than a best-of-seven series, the Penguins followed the same formula this weekend that they used in the second round of the playoffs last spring.

Zack Torquato had a goal and an assist early as the Penguins built a 3-0 lead and Tom Kostopoulos added a goal and an assist late to make sure there would be no P-Bruins comeback. After losing 5-1 at Providence on Friday, the Penguins won by the exact same score today.

Torquato made a nifty little backhand pass in tight quarters to set up Anton Zlobin for a blast from the high slot less than three minutes into the game. About 10 minutes later, those two plus linemate Dominik Uher got in on the forecheck and shoved a puck past goalie Jeff Jakaitis.

If that line sticks together, it needs a nickname. Uher-Torquato-Zlobin has a lot of weird letter combinations in it. Would be a giant Words With Friends score. I need something easier to type.

Anyway, in the final minute of the period, Simon Despres tried to find Denver Manderson in the slot from the right half-wall, but the puck banked off a P-Bruins defender and in to make it 3-0.

I know there’s a feeling that Penguins management is somehow dissatisfied with Despres, but if I stick to what I’ve seen with my own eyes, the kid is playing some unbelievable hockey. In his last 10 AHL games, he has six goals, three assists and a plus-14 rating.

And here’s the thing about those stats: He’s acquiring them without much power-play time at all. For the season, he has six goals and nine assists in 20 games. Only one of those 15 points — an assist — came on the power play.

Providence tried to get back in the game throughout the second period and into the third. After the Penguins held a 19-9 shots advantage in the first period, the P-Bruins outshot them 24-13 the rest of the way.

For a moment, it looked like it might be a game. Scott Harrington and Torquato were called for separate penalties on the same play — a two-ref special — and former Penguins D Joe Morrow buried a one-timer 3:11 into the third. Then Bobby Farnham took a penalty a few minutes later. If Providence scores there, it’s a game.

They didn’t. The PK held its ground and Eric Hartzell didn’t blink. He made 33 saves in the game to improve to 7-2-1 for the season. I don’t know if Hartzell is emerging as the No. 1 — I thought that was happening once before this season and it was a false start — but I know he had a great weekend. In January, he’s 3-0 with a 1.36 GAA and .948 save percentage.

Kostopoulos finished things off late. He stole a puck behind the net and centered to Nick Drazenovic for a goal with 7:07 left and took a long lead pass from Harry Zolnierczyk and converted a breakaway a few minutes later.

In the big picture, the Penguins built some momentum this weekend. They might not have faced the best goaltending performances the last two days, but they rebounded from a poor loss Friday with convincing victories Saturday and Sunday. They’re in a good place heading into another three-game road trip next weekend.

The team is off tomorrow, so check back for the next blog update Tuesday or Wednesday.

A winner of first-place honors in the blogging category of the 2012 Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors awards, Penguins Insider was created to give local hockey fans an interactive, in-depth way to follow the team they so passionately support. The blog's author, beat writer Jonathan Bombulie, has been covering the team since its inception in 1999. Contact him at jbombulie@aol.com

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